


A parley of provocation

by sagiow



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Confrontations, F/M, Hearteyes, Not Serious, UST, Well that escalated quickly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 02:05:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17889482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagiow/pseuds/sagiow
Summary: At this point, Queen Victoria was surely coming over for tea as well.





	A parley of provocation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/gifts).
  * Inspired by [And the days turn to gold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879330) by [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch). 



« Emma? »

All four were at a stand-off, silent, waiting for someone to shoot, for the bullet to bite; yet no one pulled the trigger. In the middle, Mary’s eyes darted from the irate young woman, burning with anger, to the frozen preacher, his jaw set, his posture rigid. Across, Jedidiah's were fixed on the Head Nurse, waiting for that mysterious fifth sense of hers to tingle and tell him, with the lightest twitch of her brow, the slightest tensing of her muscles, that it was time to spring into action.

They were in the kitchen, but they could have been in the Mongolian desert or one of Jupiter’s moons and it would not have been the strangest thing in this foreign situation.

« HOW COULD YOU! » Emma finally cried, from the depths of her belly. “You knew what it meant to me!”

Henry did not flinch, his blue gaze an icy pond in winter. “Yes, I did.”

“I trusted you!” she pressed on, fists clenched. “And you… took advantage!”

At her desperate accusation, Jed’s face blanched, while Mary’s colored. Their eyes met over the quarrellers and they suddenly wished they were anywhere but in this room, this early in the day, after such a late night, in such delicate company. “Miz Mary…” a woman’s voice was heard again, and shushed just as promptly with an impatient wave of a hand.

Henry was paying them no mind, his full focus on the livid lady before him, a certain detachment now to his bearing as he leaned against a chair. “I could say the same to you, Miss Green,” he retorted, with an uncharacteristic bite to his speech. “You were most… cavalier with your attentions.”

“I most surely was not!” she gasped. “I demand you apologize, Sir!”

“Oh, but I won’t. Not for my words, nor for helping myself to that satisfying compensation you are now so loath to be parted from. I admit it was even sweeter than I anticipated,” he added with a sneer, to another huff of rage from Emma. She took a step forward, her hand lifting once more, but Mary expected it, and she briskly grasped her wrist to prevent further damage to Henry’s physique.

Jed took this as his cue to intervene, and he grabbed the other man’s arm, twisting him away from his unexpected opponent. “Hopkins, what happened? What the devil are you speaking of?!” _The devil now,_ he noted; how far from Grace this discussion had apparently fallen.

“Why, of Miss Green’s lovely apples, of course.”

There was a stunned silence. “Her… her what now?” Mary finally stuttered, trying to decipher his meaning, and blushing furiously at the various images her attempts conjured.

“My _apples_!” Emma shouted. “Belinda brought me leftover Apples à la Parisienne from the ball for breakfast and this _thief_ stole them! I told him they were my favorite and he _ate them all_!”

She pointed accusingly to the table, where they now saw a fine plate, empty if not for a few crumbs and streaks of meringue. Henry crossed his arms, a polished spoon appearing forth in his hand, and Jed could not believe he had failed to notice how odd it was for him to hold such a utensil in the previous pandemonium.

Henry only shrugged. “Seems to me you would’ve had your share if you had just taken the smallest of intermissions from dancing all night with your gallant soldiers.”

“I could not! I was being a gracious host!” Emma riposted.

The chaplain scoffed. “Oh, indeed, is _that_ what you were being ? You had me quite fooled.”

“Isn't one slap enough, Chaplain?” Mary warned him. “I’ve a mind to release her if you keep this language up.”

“Fine. Let’s say you were a charming hostess to these handsome officers, and not deviously seducing them away from their duty.”

“Hopkins! Enough!” growled Foster, straining to keep his rising pressure in check. “What’s the matter with you, man?! You blame _her_ for young Fairfax’s escape?”

Too far along into his foray to retrench, too lacking in subtlety to plan a diversion, Henry did not back down, but charged bitterly ahead. “Well, yes, I do, but the main matter here, and the greater offense, is that she never honored the dance she pledged _me_. And since she didn’t, well… I just had to divert all that unwanted attention to that delectable dessert of her mother’s and, I must admit, now find it much more agreeable and honest company!"

At his words, all three recoiled. Emma started, as if she had been the one struck. Jed frowned, a warning clear in the taut angle of his neck. Utterly bewildered, Mary turned to Belinda, who rolled her eyes and lifted her palms in surrender. “Don’t be lookin’ at me like that, Miz Mary. I done tried to tell y'all.”

“ ** _This_** is all about… the ball? About dessert and a dance?” Mary summarized slowly, every word a strain to pronounce.

“Not just any desert!”

“Not just any dance!”

“Oh Lord in Heaven, you two!” Jed exploded, his patience extinguished. “This is beyond ridiculous! Are you bloody children? Were you raised by wolves?! No?! Hopkins, you go fetch the girl something sweet and apologize for eating her stupid French whatnot out of pitiful spite. And Miss Green, just grant the poor fellow a damn dance, will you? Can’t you see all the hearts in his eyes every time he looks at you? Hell, _I_ can see them clear as day all the way across the ward, and I can’t even focus on my own hands most of the time because I’m high as a kite! Jesus! Nurse Mary, a word, and not one more from the two of you, or so help me God!”

With a murderous last look to the sullen yet quieted younger people, Jed stole Mary to the hallway, his hand insistent upon her elbow. Once they were out of earshot and eyesight, in the relative comfort of the dimmed lighting, he leaned back against the wall, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose in muted frustration.

Mary granted him an instant to collect himself, at once concerned and amused. “That was… pious. I’ve rarely heard you speak so devoutly.”

He exhaled dramatically, both a chuckle and a sigh. “I apologize if it offended you, but it does seem to have paused their ludicrous bickering, so I can't say I'm all that sorry." When his hand dropped limply to his side, he appeared aged, defeated, a silent plea in his weary expression.

"All this talk of longing gazes and jealous retaliation has made me realize something,” he muttered dejectedly. “Something I must confess and humbly ask of you.”

Caught by the intensity of his suppliant gaze, she found herself unable to speak, and could only manage an imperceptible nod. Suddenly, there was the warmest of touches to her hand, his fingers curling around hers, and she grew unable to breathe as well.

 “Mary,” Jed finally confessed. “I fear I’m not steadfast enough in my new soberness to deal with such bunkum drama. I have rarely felt the needle calling me as it is in this excruciating moment. So please, before I lapse, lock me up again. Help me stay the course.”

The breath returned in a gust, her lungs violently deflating along with her newborn hope. Against her palm, so hot an instant ago, she now felt the cold metal of a key, pressed beseechingly. Numbly, she took it, retreating her hand to the safety of its sister. Somehow, she managed to will her lips to curl into a reassuring smile and not the painful grimace she inwardly felt.

“Of course, J- Doctor,” she replied, forgoing the allowed familiarity for the known comfort of formality. “Perhaps a bit dramatic, but if you feel there is a risk to your health -”

“To mine and theirs, if they continue on with this nonsense. It’s unbearable to watch such stupidity unfold, such wasted time and energy in such young, free people.” Was that bitterness she detected? He did not allow her time to wonder as he pressed on: “Do fetch me for any medical emergency, but if I cross these two again today, I’m afraid I will be the cause of yet another.”

 “You can count on me. Besides, you said yourself how I _relish_ locking you up,” Mary jested, hoping humor would hide the disappointment she could not seem to shake. “What shall we say ails you, this time?”

“A most grievous, head-splitting, soul-crushing migraine, and it will not be a lie.”

“I know of a most effective remedy for this,” she offered, leading the way to the upper levels.

“Thank you, Nurse Phinney. As long as it’s not what you administered the steward, I’ll gladly take it.”

**Author's Note:**

> As I can’t seem to write anything serious anymore, here is a campy take on post- "And the days turn to gold" in post-“La Belle Alliance” timeframe. The images of Henry’s hearteyes and his wolfing down Apples à la Parisienne apparently made some permanent neural damage in the “sensitive writer” cortex. I enjoyed giving him somewhat of a spine here, even if he uses it completely wrong.
> 
> I kept my promise, middlemarch: no murder.
> 
> Title from Othello.


End file.
